Kjell Stefan Löfven (; officially Löfvén; born 21 July 1957) is a Swedish politician who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 2014 to 2021 and as Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 2012 to 2021. He is currently serving as President of European Socialists since 2022."Swedish parliament confirms Social Democrat's Lofven as new PM." Reuters. Retrieved 3 October 2014.
After leaving school and completing military service in the Swedish Air Force, Löfven trained as a welder and began employment as a metalworker, becoming active within the Swedish Metalworkers' Union (SMU) and later elected as ombudsman; following its merger with the Swedish Industrial Union (SIU) to form IF Metall, he was elected as its first president in January 2006. In January 2012, he was unanimously elected leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party by its executive board following the resignation of Håkan Juholt, becoming the Leader of the Opposition despite not holding a seat in the Riksdag at the time.
Löfven led the Social Democrats into the 2014 election. Despite initial opinion poll leads, the party only gained a single seat; due to the poor performance of the governing Moderate Party which lost 23 seats, Löfven was able to form a minority coalition government with the Green Party and was appointed Prime Minister of Sweden on 3 October 2014. He went on to secure a second term in the aftermath of the inconclusive 2018 election, which saw both main parties suffer losses; after a months-long impasse that set a new record for government formation, Löfven was able to secure abstentions from MPs belonging to the Centre Party, the Left Party, and the Liberals to be re-elected by the Riksdag in January 2019. On 21 June 2021, Löfven lost a confidence motion in the Riksdag after the Left Party withdrew their support, triggering a brief crisis; it was resolved on 5 July when Löfven announced that talks to reform the government had been successful, and two days later the Riksdag once again confirmed Löfven as prime minister in a vote. Dubbed a "political escape artist" and the "Harry Houdini of European politics", Löfven was able to successfully remain as prime minister at the helm of historically weak coalition governments in the turbulent Swedish political landscape from 2014.
On 22 August 2021, Löfven announced that he would retire as leader of the Social Democrats at the November party congress, and would then resign as prime minister upon the election of his successor. In September 2021, it was confirmed that Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson would be the only candidate at the congress to replace Löfven. Andersson was elected party leader on 4 November. Löfven officially resigned as prime minister on 10 November 2021, though he continued to lead a caretaker government until his successor took office on 30 November 2021.
Early life and education Löfven was born 21 July 1957 in Aspudden, Stockholm, and his father died before he was born. He was placed in an orphanage before being looked after by a foster family from Sunnersta, Sollefteå, where he grew up. According to the agreement with this family, his birth mother would regain custody of him when she was able to; however, this did not happen.
His mother's family spells the name Löfven without any accent mark over the "e", and pronounces it accordingly, just like the Swedish word for leaves (or the German word Löwen for lions). But when being placed in care of the foster family authorities assumed the name to be Löfvén, and added the accent mark. When he met his mother and brother at almost adulthood and learned his own last name for real, he quit spelling the name with the accent mark, and considered the family's regular pronunciation, but kept on pronouncing as before, and he never applied to have the spelling corrected in the civil registry.https://www.expressen.se/nyheter/val2014/mysteriet-utrett-sa-uttalas-lofvens-namn/ Mysteriet utrett: Så uttalas Löfvéns namn (in Swedish), retrieved 25 December 2024
His foster father Ture Melander (1927–2002) was a lumberjack and later a factory worker, while his foster mother, Iris Melander (née Söderlund, 1929–2020), worked as an in-home caregiver. He studied at Sollefteå High School before starting a 48-week welding course at Arbetsmarknadsutbildningen (AMU, Unemployment Career Training) in Kramfors, and it is unclear whether he completed the course. Löfven later studied social work at Umeå University, but dropped out after a year and a half.
Trade unionist After completing his compulsory military service (as a private Munitions Systems specialist conscript) in the Swedish Air Force at the Jämtland Wing (F 4) airbase 1976–77, Löfven began his career in 1978 as a welder at Hägglund & Söner in Örnsköldsvik. Two years later, he was chosen as the group's union representative, and went on to hold a succession of union posts. In 1995, he started as an employed ombudsman in the Swedish Metalworkers' Union, working in the areas of contract negotiations and international affairs. In 2001, he was elected vice-chairman of the Metalworkers' Union; in November 2005 was elected as the first chairman of the newly formed trade union IF Metall.
Political career
Löfven has been a member of the Social Democrats since the age of 13 and was active in SSU, the youth league, in his teens. Löfven was elected to the executive board of the Social Democrats in 2006, shortly after becoming chairman of trade union IF Metall.
Leader of the Social Democrats In January 2012, following the resignation of Håkan Juholt, it was reported that Löfven was being considered as his successor. On 26 January 2012 the executive board nominated Löfven to become the party's new leader. On 27 January 2012, Löfven was elected leader in a party-room ballot. Löfven was confirmed as party leader at the party's bi-annual congress on 4 April 2013.
Löfven led his party through the 2014 European Parliament election where the Social Democrats retained their position as the largest party from Sweden in the European Parliament. However, the election results at 24.19% was a slightly inferior result than the result in the 2009 European Parliament election; the party's seats in the European Parliament was reduced from six to five and the party's results was the lowest in an election at the national level since universal suffrage was introduced in 1921.
On 12 July 2014 Löfven wrote a controversial Facebook post in which he argued that Israel has the right to defend itself against Palestinian Hamas, which he accused of attacking Israel during the 2014 Gaza war. The post received thousands of comments, many of them from critical social democratic voters, and was later removed. Afterwards, Löfven has claimed that Israel must take responsibility for its disproportionate use of force, but maintained that the country has the right to defend itself.
Prime Minister of Sweden (2014–2021)
Löfven led his party through the 2014 general election, which resulted in a hung parliament. Their election result of 31.0%, up from 30.7%, was slightly better than the result in the 2010 general election, but the result was also the party's second worst result in a general election to the Riksdag since universal suffrage was introduced in 1921.
He announced that he would form a minority coalition government consisting of his own party and the Green Party. On 2 October 2014, the Riksdag voted to approve Löfven as Prime Minister, and he took office on the following day when he was confirmed by king Carl XVI Gustaf during a Council of State alongside his Cabinet. The Social Democrats and the Green Party voted in favour of Löfven becoming prime minister, while close ally the Left Party abstained. The opposition Alliance-parties also abstained while the far-right Sweden Democrats voted against.
Löfven expressed a desire for bipartisan agreement between the Government and the opposition Alliance parties, and together they marked three areas where enhanced cooperation would be initiated. These three areas were the pension system, future energy development, and security and defence policy.
Domestic policy
2014 budget crisis
The Government's first budget was introduced to the Riksdag on 23 October 2014. The Left Party, which had been given influence over the budget, supported it; however, the non-socialist coalition, the Alliance, introduced a competing budget to the Riksdag on 10 November, as they had promised prior to the 2014 election, and the Sweden Democrats also introduced their own budget on the same day.
According to Riksdag practice, the parties support their own budget and if their budget falls they abstain from voting in the second round. However, on 2 December, the far-right Sweden Democrats announced that, after their own budget fell in the first voting round, they would support the Alliance parties' budget in the second voting round, thus giving that budget a majority in the Riksdag. This caused a crisis for the newly elected Government, which was exacerbated after their own budget was voted down by the Alliance parties and the Sweden Democrats on 3 December. Löfven immediately announced that he would call an early election, to be held on 22 March 2015.
On 22 December, sources within the Riksdag leaked information that the Government was negotiating with the Alliance parties (the Moderate Party, Centre Party, Liberal People's Party and the Christian Democrats) to find a solution and to avoid a fresh election. On 27 December, the Government and the Alliance parties held a joint press conference where they announced that the six parties had reached an agreement designed to ensure that the Government's budgets would be voted through in the second round of voting. The agreement was dubbed "" (December Agreement), was called historical by Löfven and was agreed to remain in force until the 2022 election, regardless of the results of the 2018 election. Subsequently, Löfven announced that he no longer intended to call a snap election. The centre-right Alliance withdrew from the agreements in 2015, but allowed the minority government to continue governing.
2015 European migrant crisis In 2015, when a rising number of refugees and migrants"The majority of people arriving this year in Italy and Greece especially have been from countries mired in war or which otherwise are considered to be 'refugee-producing' and for whom international protection is needed. However, a smaller proportion is from elsewhere, and for many of these individuals, the term 'migrant' would be correct." began to make the journey to the European Union to seek asylum, Europe was hit by a migrant crisis and Sweden received over 150,000 refugees in 2015.
During the autumn of 2015, the reception of refugees increased significantly to over 80,000 in two months and with terror group Islamic state rampage in the Middle East and the following attacks in Paris in November 2015, the Löfven cabinet significantly reverted Sweden's migration policy. On 23 October 2015, a bipartisan migration agreement was signed between the cabinet parties and the oppositional Moderate Party, the Centre Party, the Liberals and the Christian Democrats which included, among many other changes, temporary residency permits, total financial support requirements for family reunification and by law forcing municipalities to help with sheltering refugees in order to better distribute the burden across the country.